“Publicity through the voice of God: Hildegard of Bingen as a Public Figure in the Twelfth Century”
By Allison Jaines Elledge History 631 Professor Jeri McIntosh December 1, 2009
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Introduction Hildegard of Bingen has a long list of titles: she is sometimes said to be a mystic, sometimes a visionary, as well as prophet, physician, artist, musician, poet, and theologian. Little is known of her youth except that she was born in 1098, the youngest of ten children to a noble family. As a child she was rather sickly and migraines plagued her for the rest of her life. 1 She was given to the convent at Disibodenberg at the age of eight, under the care of her spiritual mother, Jutta, who provided her with an education.2 When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard became abbess of the convent. After a vision from God and much struggle with the abbot of Disibodenberg, Kuno, Hildegard moved her nuns to a new convent on the Rhine at Rupertsberg in 1150 and later founded a daughter convent across the river at Eibingen. Already well known and resourceful prior to the move, she earned her greatest fame as a visionary at Rupertsberg. She went on four public preaching tours that took her all over Germany and into France (map 1).3 She wrote several works, including Scivias (Know the Ways (of the Lord)), Ordo Virtutum (Play of Virtues), Liber vitae meritorum (Book of Life’s Merits), Liber divinorum operum (Book of Divine Works), De operatione Dei (On God’s Works). She also wrote two works on natural history and medicine, Physica and Causae et Curae, and a collection of songs with notes and lyrics, Symphonia.
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Most scholars agree that migraines are the probable cause of Hildegard’s visions and many of them refer to Oliver Sacks’ work on migraines, which includes discussion of Hildegard. See Oliver Sacks, Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder (Berkeley, 1985), 106-108. Hildegard herself sees a correlation between her ailments and her visions. She writes in her vita that after a certain vision she was “Exhausted by all this” and she asked a nurse whether she had also seen anything “save external objects,” to which the nurse replied, “Nothing.” Peter Dronke, Women Writers in the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). (London: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 145. 2 Barbara Newman states that Hildegard repeatedly, almost exhaustively, describes herself as indocta (uneducated). However, while she never learned high Latin, she was not ignorant. The Vita of her spiritual mother, Jutta, presents her as a teacher to students and refers at one point to a school. Barbara Newman, ed. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 6. 3 The first tour (1158) took her to Mainz, Würzburg, and Babmerg; the second (1160) to Trier and Metz; the third (1161) to Boppard, Andernach, and Sieburg, and the last (1170) to Maulbronn, Hirsau, and Zwiewfalten.
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Hildegard was peripherally involved in contemporary politics, and she was in contact with some of the most esteemed theologians of her day, including Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius III, who, according to her vita, “commanded” her to continue writing Scivias. Hildegard also communicated with the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. She admonished Frederick for his role in the papal schism of 1159-1177 and offered Eleanor support and comforting words during her “times of tribulation,” which during most of Eleanor’s life, could have been at almost any point in time. In recent years, few other medieval women have attracted so much scholarly attention. Most of her writing has been translated into English, numerous biographies have been written about her, and several scholars have analyzed her work. She is also considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and is listed in the Roman Martyrology even though she was never formally canonized by the Holy See.4 Scholarship in the mid-twentieth century included a strong interest in the social sciences, the linguistic turn, and postmodernist theories. These influences, as well as the feminist movement of the 1970s, contributed to an interest in theoretical analyses of women of the past, including Hildegard.5 Partly because her corpus is so extensive and partly because of these developments in historical scholarship, studies of Hildegard have been done in piecemeal fashion, each looking at a specific aspect of her life and work. This has resulted in varying assertions about where to place her in the canon of medieval thinkers, women, and theologians. Beginning in the early 1980s, feminist analyses were applied to Hildegard’s writings, and today 4
David Hugh Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 4th ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 237. Her feast day is September 17th. Further evidence for her sainthood comes from Pope John XXII, who in 1324, granted indulgences to the faithful who observe certain feast days, including Hildegard of Bingen’s. Finally, even today inscribed on her shrine at the church in Eibingen is “Saint Hildegard pray for us” (“Heilige Hildegard Bitte für Uns.”) See Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life (London: Routledge, 1990), 12-13. 5 For a brief but excellent analysis of these influences on the historical profession, see Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), esp. 8ff. However, Bennett charges that women’s history has been too subsumed by literary criticism, 39.
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Hildegard’s gender is frequently discussed in relationship to her writings, perhaps because she focused on it herself when she famously feminized the divine. 6 In contemporary studies, and especially now that more of her works have been translated into English, scholars are keen to understand the entirety of Hildegard. This essay focuses on the public aspect of Hildegard’s life and argues that Hildegard was a public figure long before there existed a Habermasian “public sphere.”7 It also defines public and private in the twelfth century and locates what I term a “religious public sphere.” Finally, this essay argues that Hildegard claimed authority as a result of her fame and her own manipulation of her gender. It will explain her fama through her collection of letters, her vita, and from two of her lesser-known works, Physica and Causae et Curae.
Defining Public and Private in Non-Spatial Terms The linguistic and cultural differences between the medieval and postmodern periods are incommensurable and hence our account of their experience is limited by our definitions. One way to lessen this limitation and gain some understanding of what may be considered a medieval concept of “public” is through the Latin terms present in letters written to Hildegard, including fama, auctoritas, rumor, celeber, de te plura audiuimus, and others. This epistolary content contains information about people in nearby German towns and people as far away as Jerusalem who wrote to Hildegard, praising the divine power at work within her and begging for her to respond with words of wise counsel. In this sense, “public” rests upon fame and reputation, and 6
See Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), esp. 42-46. 7 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989). The public sphere, in the most basic sense, is made up of private individuals meeting in the public to discuss and debate common (mostly political) issues of the day. Specifically for Habermas, the public sphere requires capitalism, a middle class, and a media, such as newspapers, none of which existed in the twelfth century.
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not a specifically defined space as an eighteenth-century “sphere.”8 Gary Schneider says that the “most consequential public benefit of the private sphere, of the contemplative life . . . is that many of the characteristics associated with the private life—ascetic principles such as fasting, chastity, verbal moderation, simplicity in dress—had social value.” 9 Hildegard initially had apprehensions about her role in the public, or at least a preference for the contemplative life. Her biographer Godefried said, “it is as if God were saying to her concerning the mode of the active life: I will not leave you or abandon you.” God apparently had to provide comfort and encouragement often because it was said that, given the weakness of her sex, she was too fearful and sick to go out and teach without the urging of God. 10 Moreover, God could not allow Hildegard to maintain a perpetually contemplative life all the time, because it might risk violating the proscription on fully be knowing God.11 Godefried, writing in God’s voice, said “Turn aside your eyes,” [God asks] “from the contemplation of me, for they cause me to fly away, because in this life they are not capable of perfectly knowing me . . .” In this way while the blessed virgin was still in the flesh she both laboured in the active life, and 8
Harold Mah states that historians have so skewed Habermas’s conception of the bourgeois public sphere into a “spatialized image of conflicting social groups,” becoming a more or less united group, which in turn collapses into a collective “public” and no longer a “public sphere.” Our confusion comes from the difficult to translate “Öffentlichkeit,” which historians have taken to mean “public sphere.” The result is that we have created a circular argument from which we cannot escape: “The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people coming together as a public.” Harold Mah, “Phantasies of the Public Sphere: Rethinking Habermas of Historians” The Journal of Modern History 72: 1 (Mar., 2000), 155-156. 9 Gary Schneider, “The Public, the Private, and the Shaming of the Shrew” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1800 42:2 (Spring, 2002), 245. Though Schneider is writing about the Tudor/Shakesperean period in England, this statement can be applied to monasticism and secular culture throughout the Middle Ages. The “monastic ideal” began with St. Anthony of Alexandria (d. 356.) about whom Martin Luther (d. 1546) praised as “the founder of a monastic way of life true to the spirit of the Gospels.” The popularity and emulation of St. Anthony’s during his lifetime is an early example of the contemplative life affecting the public, marked by further popularity after Athanasius wrote his vita in 356. Cassian (d. ca. 435) said “Our fasting, our vigils, mediation on Scripture, poverty and the privation of all things are not perfection,” rather perfection is the goal of monastic life, or the monastic ideal. See Carolyn White, ed., Early Christian Lives (New York: Penguin, 1998), xi (Luther), xvi (Cassian). 10 Silvas, Anna, ed. Jutta and Hildegard: the Biographical Sources. (University Park: Penn State Press, 1999), 2:2, 159. Hereafter: Vita 2:2, Silvas, 159. Biblical quote, Heb. 13:5. 11 This is a distortion of the “monastic ideal” of early Christianity. Once monks were bound by a regulae, the emphasis became living the right life for God rather than uniting with God. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries emphasized this union—as did certain theologians of the twelfth, namely Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, and Aelred of Rievaulx—the original meaning had become distorted: one still had to maintain both a vita activa et vita contemplativa. Moreover, Hildegard claims that she spent several years of her youth contemplating, in large part because she did not understand her visions, so she remained silent and fearful, Vita 1:8, Silvas, 150-51.
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in the contemplative life gazed with all her desires on the very light inaccessible of the Divinity.12 Considering that Hildegard lived both a vita contemplativa and a vita activa, can people living in monasteries and convents be considered private persons? “Private” can be perceived in two ways. The first is spatial. Enclosure behind convent walls embodies nuns’ private space and a marked separation from the outside, public world. Yet this space is also the communal household of God, as perceived in the fifth century by the Rule of St. Benedict, and should not be conceived of as a private space.13 Moreover, as Schneider implies, the walls were often breached in order to fulfill the inhabitants’ spiritual duties to the larger community. 14 Anecdotally, Hildegard’s first spiritual mother, Jutta, conceived of private and public space in spatial, but not necessarily confined, terms. In the final hours of her life, she requested that she “not be buried in any holy place, but rather in a place where she might daily be trodden upon by passers-by.” 15 John van Engen states that this is an example of “the humility that hinted at her sense of the public.” 16 Moreover, convents were not always cut off from the outside world; people, especially men, were regularly coming and going. This is evident in Hildegard’s vita and letters. Her first convent at Disinbodenberg was attached to a monastery. Thus in the setting of a double monastery, where “the monks had known her almost from the cradle,” men and women lived side-by-side, not wholly separate from one another.17 In addition, Hildegard’s male secretaries spend much time at the convent. In a letter to Pope Eugenius III, Hildegard mentions being visited by the convoy that 12
Vita 1:8, Silvas, 151. Biblical quote, Cant. 5:5. St. Benedict’s Rule focuses heavily on the monks working together in a community setting, with no personal property. Privacy is mentioned only in terms of prayer: “A brother who wishes to pray in private will not be disturbed by anyone’s misconduct,” Anthony C. Meisel and M.L. del Mastro, trans. The Rule of St. Benedict, (Garden City, NY: Image Books, Doubleday, 1975), ch. 52, p. 89. 14 Penelope D. Johnson, “The Cloistering of Medieval Nuns: Release or Repression, Reality or Fantasy?” Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women’s History: Essays from the Seventh Berkshire Conference on the History of Women (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1992), 40-55. 15 Life of Jutta, 1:8, Silvas, 81. 16 John van Engen, “Abbess: Mother and Teacher,” in Voice of the Living Light, 35. 17 Ibid. 13
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Eugenius had sent to collect her writings for him, which suggests both that the Pope was interested in her work and that his interest was public. Privacy in the Middle Ages can also be considered in the context of the twelfth century renaissance, with the link between individual and private. Thinkers of this period conceived of the individual, rather than the collective, as working to unite with God.
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The sense of
community remained intact for monasteries and convents, but those within them understood that they were striving towards God individually while under the care of a superior who looked after the collective souls of the community. The twelfth century experienced dramatic changes in almost every aspect of society. They occurred in religious life and theology beginning with the Gregorian reforms of the late eleventh century. There were developments in education, including the rise in universities; changes in urban society, especially with respect to economic life, law, and politics; a rising sense of selfawareness and introspection that is reflected in extant literature and letters; a transformation in philosophical and scientific thinking; a rise in literary forms, including a small (as compared to the later Italian Renaissance) look back to the classics and Church fathers as well as an emerging vernacular literature; a “historical discontinuity” in which late medieval thinkers began to see a break between antiquity and their present period; and lastly, a transformation in art and architecture, which, like literature, placed an emphasis back to ancient Rome. 19 During the ‘long twelfth century’, introspection became a key element in both secular and religious literary genres, including epistolary, biographical, autobiographical, and poetry. Conceptions of selfawareness are seen in titles of written works. “Mirror” is a word that was often used within titles 18
Much of the following discussion on the individual, introspection, and unio Deo is adapted from Allison Jaines Elledge, “Women’s Mysticism in the Late Middle Ages: the Influence of Affective Love and the Courtly Love Tradition,” (Master’s Thesis, The University of Tennessee, 2008) 9-15. 19 See Robert L. Benson, Giles Constable, and Carol Dana Lanham in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (University of Toronto Press, 1991). Originally published by Harvard Press, 1982.
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of both religious and secular works. William of St. Thierry’s The Mirror of Faith, Aelred of Rievaulx’s The Mirror of Charity are written in a manner of self-reflection to understand and explain their love of God and the steps they took to reach that high level of love, and thus union. Hildegard wrote to her contemporary, Elisabeth of Schönau, “may God make you a mirror of life.”20 These works are placed within a growing tradition of self-disclosure with an emphasis on personal experience.21 This self-awareness was based far more in religious literature than secular literature and viewpoints.22 Bernard of Clairvaux, following Socrates, told his monks to “Know thyself.”23 His Sermons on the Song of Songs may not have been read aloud to his monks,24 perhaps suggesting they were meant to be private and he was writing for himself. Peter Abelard emphasized right intent based on individual agency and morality. His autobiography, Historia suarum calamitatem, written in the epistolary form, is a self-portrait of Abelard’s life as a monk,
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Joseph L. Baird, ed. The Personal Correspondence of Hildegard of Bingen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Letter 55, p. 105. Hereafter: Baird, Personal Correspondence. 21 In addition to religious “mirrors” was the twelfth-century English satire, Speculum Stultorum [A Mirror for Fools], which was not necessarily about the Benedictine monk Nigel Longchamp looking inward, but was used to urge his fellow monks and the Cistercian Order to look at themselves to see their foolish ways. Likewise, Arnulf of Bohéries wrote the Mirror for Monks (ca. 1200) as a guide for new monks with a concern for moral edification and daily ritual. It is not, however, despite its name, a treatise for spiritual progress in the manner of Bernard and William. See Carolyn Walker Bynum, “The Cistercian Concept of Community: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality” The Harvard Theological Review 68, no. 3/4 (Jul.-Oct, 1975), 276-77, n. 12. See also Giles Constable, “Twelfth-Century Spirituality and the Late Middle Ages” Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer 1969. Ed. O.B. Hardison, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971), 31. Constable says that while a minor work it was still widely read. 22 Benson, et al. Renaissance and Renewal, xxiii. 23 John F. Benton, “Consciousness of Self and Perceptions of Individuality” Renaissance and Renewal, 263. 24 This is heavily debated. Duncan Robertson, “The Experience of Reading: Bernard of Clairvaux’s “Sermons on the Song of Songs” Religion and Literature 19:1 (Spr., 1987), 4-5. Duncan does hint that the Sermons may have been read outside the cloister because Bernard addresses “‘you, brothers,’ that is, the world beyond the walls of Clairvaux. Where an oral delivery is confined and sheltered in space and time, the book lies open to anyone who can read.” In other words, there is no reason to insert “you brothers” in a sermon to be delivered; it is already implied. By writing the phrase instead, Bernard was attempting to make his readers active participants of his writing. Jean Leclercq, the Bernardine expert, will only state that he believes the Sermons to have been dictated to a secretary and revised by Bernard and that the Sermons show his literary and not his oral style. Instead, he likely delivered lectures about the Songs. Christopher Holdsworth thinks the sermons exist as they actually were read aloud to the brothers at Clairvaux and reworked as necessary. For this argument and Leclercq, see Holdsworth, “Were the Sermons of St. Bernard on the Song of Songs Ever Preached?” Medieval Monastic Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 295-318. The Sermons were unfinished at the time of Bernard’s death and have been viewed by many scholars as his greatest literary work.
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the difficulties surrounding his lover Heloise, and his intellectual life in Paris—in other words, both his private and public life. 25 The letter is written in first person and the chapter headings are written in third person. A marked individualism less apparent in Hildegard’s writings than in her Cistercian contemporaries, but it is not entirely absent. For example, her letters are written in the first person (Hildegard speaking) and third person (God speaking). Her conception of unio Deo follows the Benedictine tradition, rather than the Cistercian understanding of unio mystica Deo.26 She did not wholly reject a mystical union, but the idea is not as dominant in Hildegard’s writings as it in some of Bernard’s and Aelred’s. Her position on this may ne a result of attempting to establish herself as an authoritative and individuated voice in the Christian community, which might not be easy if she were seen to be female mystic. As a woman, union with Christ the bridegroom can easily assume sexualized language, as was seen so often from female mystics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and sometimes seen with suspicion by many in the Church. This might have weakened Hildegard’s status in regards to serious theological inquiries and she may not have been taken as seriously. Already, Hildegard had raised the ire of some of her contemporaries because of her visionary status. Twelfth-century religiosi were more concerned with why or how one’s emotions led to and controlled actions as well as how the individual soul moved towards God. William of St. Thierry explained that on the path to loving God the individual must go through four stages: will (youth), love (young adult), charity (adult), and wisdom (old age). Lastly, Augustine’s City of God may have been conceptualized by believers as two distinct spaces in which the individual
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Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 97-98, and Haskins, 257-58. 26 Barbara Newman, “Introduction,” Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, Mother Columba Hart, trans. (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 44.
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privately worked towards entering the City of God, while living communally in the City of Man. In this twelfth-century context of individualism and introspection, as well as fama and reputatio, Hildegard should be viewed as both a private woman religiosa and public figure.
Locating the Public: Three Layers of Medieval Society27 We can identify Hildegard’s public persona on three distinct, but related levels, which I conceptualize as a “religious public sphere.”28 This is not the “bourgeois public sphere” of Habermas’ eighteenth-century France or England, nor does it claim a sense of social equality, but it does borrow a few key ideas. One of which is Habermas’ idea that, The public sphere’s . . . foundation in the reason of individuals [is] registered in the shared recognition that in this collectivity of rational-critical debate the only valid authority is that of “the better argument. And because equal individuals have agreed to recognize “the better argument” as the sole legitimate authority because they have agreed to be “impartial,” this assembly of persons can in principle reach a common judgment.29 An example of this is the exchange between Bernard of Clairvaux, who argued for the primacy of faith, and Peter Abelard, who argued for the primacy of reason. This led to a “public debate” that resulted in Abelard being shunned, but not excommunicated, by Church authorities who asserted that Bernard had the “better argument” and was viewed as the “valid authority.” The existence of a “religious public sphere” can also be educed from the idea that, “The movement in 27
Lieven van Acker began a critical edition of Hildegard’s correspondence of nearly 400 letters; unfortunately, he died before its completion. The project was taken up by Joseph Baird and Radd Ehrman. Because so many of the letters are undated and undatable, Van Acker made the decision to categorize Hildegard’s correspondence hierarchically rather than chronologically, that is, into “Class 1” “Class 2” and “Class 3.” His divisions are only slightly different from mine, as “Class 1” includes bishops and archbishops, where I placed them in a “second level” of a “religious public sphere,” discussed below, p. 9. My divisions are hierarchically based upon those involved in a high form of intellectual activity; and necessarily based upon extant writings. See the review of Baird and Ehrman, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Vol. II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), by Barbara Newman, The Medieval Review, (April 15, 1999). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.baj9928.9904.015. 28 Following the advice of Mah, I do not perceive a “religious public sphere” as a physical place, but rather an ongoing literary conversation over which theological matters are discussed and debated. One example is the exchange 29 Mah, 156. From Habermas, Structural Transformation, 36.
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the public sphere from equal persons using their reason to the formation of a rational consensus [which] confers on the public sphere the image of embodying, in Habermas's words, ‘the parity of common humanity,’ whose object of concern could then be whatever is of “common concern.’”30 I do not argue that an across-the-board parity existed among those who embodied the “religious public sphere.” I do see Habermas’s “parity of common humanity” sharing a “common concern.” For twelfth-century religiosi, the concerns are correct theological interpretation of the Bible, right intent and action, orthodoxy, and the salvation of souls. The first of these is what identifies a specifically religious public sphere from the rest of the public: not just anyone can engage in biblical exegesis. Thus, the first layer of the religious public sphere includes figures of authority—the wellknown theologians of the twelfth century who wrote, preached publicly, discussed and debated with one another about matters of the Church, including Church politics, biblical exegesis, and Christian doctrine. This group of mostly learned men included Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Abelard, William of St. Thierry, Rupert of Deutz, Aelred of Rievaulx, Guibert of Nogent, Peter the Venerable of Cluny. We can also include in this group several twelfth-century popes, including Innocent II, Eugenius III and Alexander III, who were not just the heads of the Church of Rome, but also of Christendom’s secular rulers and lay people. These men were viewed as authoritative voices of Christendom; they interpreted the Bible and engaged in the political matters of the Church. Their beliefs were orthodox and they focused on rooting out heretical movements as well as heretical ideas. Barbara Newman includes Hildegard in this group of male theologians who, like her, are known for their theological and exegetical writings. These men “all ran the gamut of Christian thought, offering a mélange of Biblical commentary, moral and spiritual teaching, and dogmatic instruction in forms that range from the libellus to the 30
Mah, 157, from Habermas, Structual Transformation, 36.
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encyclopedia.”31 The second level of the “religious public sphere” includes those who engaged with Hildegard directly, through visits or letters. Most of the extant letters in Hildegard’s literary works are to or from abbesses and abbots, monks, nuns, priests, bishops and archbishops. Almost all of them, after stating how they had learned of her fama, asked Hildegard for her advice on various matters. The secular or lay realm is the third instance of public. This layer was less concerned with spiritual matters than the other two layers of medieval society, but not wholly uninvolved. Eleanor of Aquitaine and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa can be included here because they lived in the secular world and participated in the affairs of the Church but their participation was not of the same kind as the strictly religious. Eleanor established monasteries and communicated with and was scolded by Bernard of Clairvaux; Frederick appointed bishops, exchanged gifts with archbishops, and participated in the Third Crusade, during which he died. He was supposedly very religious and believed that the secular state and religious church should cooperate with one another, but also asserted that the Church should defer to the Emperor’s power. Philip the Count of Flanders wrote to Hildegard asking for “illumination and advice about his crusader undertaking.”32 In 1166, John of Salisbury wrote to a friend asking him to search in Hildegard’s visions et oraculae to find a prophetic vision to the end of the papal schism. 33 There are also numerous letters from provosts, who were administrators of secular churches often associated with political and material power.34 Despite the hierarchical nature of these three layers of society, each belongs to the upper strata of medieval society. Now that “public” and 31
Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom, xx. Miriam Rita Tessera, “Philip Count of Flanders and Hildegard of Bingen: Crusading against the Saracens or Crusading against Deadly Sin?” Gendering the Crusades, Susan B. Eddington and Sarah Lambert, ed., (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 77. 33 Ibid. 34 John Van Engen, “Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard, Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld: internationaler wissenschaftlicher Kongress zum 900 jährigen Jubiäum, 13-19. September 1998, Bingen am Rhein, Alfred Haverkamp, ed., (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2000), 404. 32
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“private” have been defined and identified, I will turn to Hildegard herself as a public figure and the ways she interacted with the public and established her authority.
A “poor little woman”: claiming authority and downplaying gender Hildegard created her own public persona by initiating her reputatio. The reasons behind her desire for fame are unclear; John van Engen does not address causes except to say that Hildegard’s former abbess and teacher, Jutta of Sponheim, was a probable model of behavior. Jutta’s biographer claims that she was an oracle of the spiritual life and that “people of all social classes” sent letters to her and that she counseled them. Van Engen suggests that, “Hildegard may have inherited that role locally.” 35 If Jutta was already in the advising role and seen as a sort of prophet, it is not difficult to imagine that Hildegard, having been under Jutta’s direct care for thirty years, also would have assumed a responsibility to the community. Sabina Flanagan argues that Hildegard made an attempt to identify herself “with the male literary and theological élite” by writing in Latin on theological topics. 36 Flanagan says this bold move “cut her off” from the unlearned majority and placed her “squarely in the tradition of learned writing.” 37 This is an important point because had Hildegard written her visions in the vernacular German, her contemporaries—despite the level of the “public” they belonged to— may not have given her the same recognition and encouragement. What is even more remarkable about the encouragement Hildegard was given for her visions is that in the twelfth century, visionary prophecy was not praised as a substitute for proper education in matters of spiritual understanding. Flanagan says that both Rupert of Deutz and Joachim of Fiore, both of whom are considered to be visionaries, 35
Van Engen, “Public Persona,” 381. Sabina Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 43. 37 Ibid. 36
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“did not even claim the same degree of illumination as Hildegard.” 38 Yet, as evidence of her attempt to fit into the class of learned theologians of her day, and thereby earn her fama, Hildegard not only wrote accounts of her visions, she also explained them, often in lengthy chapters. She supports her explanations by citing scriptural references and she demonstrates a clear understanding of medieval typology, often employing the tropological level of explication. Flanagan says that Hildegard “took pains to locate herself within the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament.”39 She sees this not merely in what Hildegard says of herself in letters to other people, but within Hildegard’s formal theological writing. Hildegard was able to be an “unlearned” prophetess because she was “merely” a mouthpiece of God. If that is the case, it implies that what she wrote is theologically correct, or at least not heretical. Unlike Peter Dronke, who suggested that Hildegard’s knowledge of theological matters was “intuitive,” Flanagan hints that Hildegard may have played down her education, however rudimentary, and that she took advantage of the understanding that female prophets were to be accepted based on biblical example and patristic approval. She also notes that Hildegard was certainly aware that because God used the “weak to confound the strong, and fools to correct the wise, there were no upsetting consequences for the perceived natural order.” 40 In other words, Hildegard took advantage of her gender, and used it to promote her own theological understandings. Because it is always the “Living Light” speaking through her, she was allowed to take on typically “male” sacerdotal roles, including public preaching and exorcism. Yet, even though Hildegard’s some contemporaries often looked beyond her gender because of her prophetic powers, others viewed her skeptically only because of her gender. 38
Ibid, 53. Ibid, 61. Barbara Newman concurs with this statement. See “Hildegard and Her Hagiographers” in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and their Interpreters. Catherine M. Mooney, ed., (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 19. 40 Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 54. 39
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Hildegard writes in her Vita about the difficulty she endured during her eventually successful attempt to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. She says, “Then the ancient deceiver put me to the ordeal of great mockery, in that many people said: ‘What’s all this—so many hidden truths revealed to this foolish, unlearned woman, even though there are many brave and wise men around? Surely this will come to nothing!’ For many people have wondered whether my revelation stemmed from God, or from the parchedness (inaquositas) of aerial spirits, that often seduced human beings.”41 Dronke suggests that Hildegard herself seems to think that her gender had little to do with the opinions of those who doubted her claims. Instead, she thought they either questioned the validity of her reports or were corrupted by “the ancient deceiver.” She certainly had cause to think that her gender was not an impediment because of the typically male roles she performed and encouraged to continue. However, the language of her letters indicates more ambiguity over her gender. To authoritative men and one contemporary female visionary, Elisabeth of Schönau, Hildegard repeatedly refers to herself as a “poor little woman,” and a “poor creature formed from a rib,” and a “fragile vessel.” There is rarely mention of her gender in her writings to everyone else, and the tone is usually that of a gentle authority. Despite the regard many people had for her as a result of her visionary gifts, Hildegard did not always get her way. Dronke says that Hildegard “could use her prophetic persona savagely and overbearingly.”42 When Hildegard’s “favorite nun,” Richardis of Stade, and another nun, Adelheid, sought to move to other convents as abbesses, Hildegard fought their efforts, unsuccessfully appealing to the Pope to intervene.43 When the archbishop of Mainz wrote her what is essentially a cease-and-desist letter, she boldly replied with God’s voice: “the reasons that have been alleged for the appointment of this girl are unavailing in the sight of God, because 41
Dronke, 150. Dronke, 154. 43 After Adelheid left, Hildegard dropped the matter. However, she continued her protest over Richardis. 42
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I, the high and deep and encompassing one, who am a piercing light, did not lay down and choose those reasons: they were perpetrated in the conniving audacity of ignorant hearts . . .” 44 Dronke hints that perhaps it was Hildegard who had the audacity. In another pleading letter to the Archbishop Hartwig, Hildegard does not use God’s voice but insists that she knows His will and is fulfilling that will. Dronke interprets her actions—the visions and knowing the will of God— as megalomanic, particularly in reference to Richardis and the dispute over Emperor Frederick Barbarossa’s installation of the anti-Pope, Calixtus III. In a letter to the Emperor in 1168 Hildegard wrote, “He who IS, speaks: I through Myself destroy recalcitrance and crush the opposition of those who defy me. Woe, woe, upon the evildoing of the unjust who scorn me! Hear this, king, if you would live—else my sword will pierce through you!” 45 As her reputation grew, Hildegard claimed authority at a level of high-status men and was rarely challenged, thus adding to her fama as God’s mouthpiece. Certainly no medieval woman could get away with speaking to men with such language; Hildegard was gaining authority and publicity through the voice of God. Hildegard’s measure of power can only have been granted as a result of the fama of being God’s holy mouthpiece. After the nuns moved to their new convent, they were given “individual and free choice” to receive priests from the monastery whom they themselves had asked for by name” in order to support them “through the care of their souls and the celebration of the holy liturgy as through the administration of temporal goods.” 46 This claim of the vita’s authors is no exaggeration; the arrangements were confirmed in a letter from Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) to Hildegard’s nephew, Wezelin, who was the abbot of St. Andrew in Cologne. 47 It was also 44
Dronke, 154. Baird, Personal Correspondence, Letter 44, p. 78. 46 Vita 1:7, Silvas, 148. 47 Vita 1:7, Silvas, 148, n. 72. 45
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confirmed and later upheld by the Archbishops of Mainz, Henry (1142-1153) and Arnold (11531160).48
Hildegard as a Public Figure: Presentation of the self and the spread of fama in toto mundo as seen in her Vita, letters, and preaching tours John van Engen convincingly argues that historians have long perpetuated the myth that Pope Eugenius III and Bernard of Clairvaux “commanded” Hildegard to continue writing her Scivias after the Pope publicly read from the work at the Council of Trier in 1147-48. 49 This stems from Hildegard’s vita, written by her two secretaries Ludwig and Godefried, and completed by Theodoric, and in which Hildegard helped to produce. This work is filled with references to her fame and reputation. Indeed, the same trope is in her spiritual mother’s biography, which states, “Because of the many works of piety that so abundantly overflowed in her, the fame of her name became widely celebrated.” 50 The difficulty of using Hildegard’s vita as a source to find her public persona is that in the High Middle Ages, vitae were usually written after the death of a holy person for purposes of canonization. Often, reputations were exaggerated and miracles abound, all of which is apparent in both Hildegard’s and Jutta’s biographies.51 48
Vita 1:7, Silvas, 148, n. 73. John van Engen, “Public Persona,” 379-392. See also Barbara Newman, Voice of the Living Light, 11 and p. 200, n. 57. Also, Newman, “Hildegard and Her Hagiographers,” 197-98, n. 22. Newman does not exactly perpetuate the “myth,” but neither does she refute it. She acknowledges Hildegard’s Vita as documentation of the command, but says that there is no mention of Hildegard from the Council of Trier’s documents. Additionally, she says that while no letter survived from Pope Eugenius urging Hildegard to write, there is no reason to believe Gottfried was exaggerating. However, the letter from Pope Eugenius that is listed among Hildegard’s epistolary corpus, PL, 197:145 has been proven a forgery. Unfortunately, even in the present day such distortions are perpetuated. A new German film was released September, 2009: “Vision – Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen,” which apparently depicts the saint as an early feminist engaging in extreme self-flagellation, and having endured a “trial” because she was a “rebel” against the Church. Nothing could be further from the truth. 50 The Life of Jutta, 1:3, in Silvas, 73. 51 For example, Book III, chapter one begins with her miraculous powers of healing, “So powerful a charism of healings shone out in the blessed virgin, that scarcely anyone approached her sick who did not immediately regain good health.” The authors then proceed to list several examples of her power (184). Even so, this adds more weight 49
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The authors of Hildegard’s vita wrote that when Hildegard “had matured in her holy way of life for many years and all her concern was to please God alone, at last the time drew near for her life and teaching to be displayed for the benefit of many. But she, from feminine bashfulness, shrank from becoming the butt of common gossip and the rash judgment of others.”52 Afterwards, she went to her teacher, Kuno, the abbot at Disibodenberg (1136-1155), who initially thought the whole matter strange but believed that “nothing is impossible to God” 53 After hearing her and seeing her writings, Kuno became even more persuaded by her abilities, and “gave orders that she should make public what God had bestowed.” He “saw to it that the matter should be brought to public notice,” by which he meant that he took her writings and showed them to the Archbishop of Mainz, Henry, (1142-53).54 Thereupon, Henry “granted her permission to make known whatever she learnt . . . and encouraged her to put it in writing.” 55 Archbishop Henry was her patron and a major supporter of Hildegard; in the face of protests from the monks at Disibod, he helped her relocate her convent to Rupertsberg. In addition to communicating, letter writing in the Middle Ages was meant to show off someone’s literary style and mastery of language, or to prove them as a political or religious authority. Hildegard’s letters, including forgeries, were designed to “represent Hildegard primarily as a divine teacher, an “oracle” writing letters.” The aim was to see her letters as sermons or treatises rather than a model of “elegant epistolary form” or merely as correspondence.56 They also were used to reveal her numerous and important contacts.
to the theory that she had a public persona: “she came to help not only of those nearby, but also of those far away” (186). Jutta’s miracles were more of the common type: she turned water into wine and crossed lowing streams on dry foot, in Silvas, 45. 52 Vita I:3. Anna Silvas, 141. 53 Cf. Luke 1:37, 18:27. 54 Vita I:3 in Silvas, 141. 55 Vita I:4 in Silvas, 144. 56 Van Engen, “Public Persona,” 377.
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Hildegard wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux sometime in 1147, six years after she began her Scivias. His responded pleasantly, but “with an artful dodge.” He was perhaps uncertain of what to think about her claim to being a visionary and he was certainly aware that prophecy could be viewed as a threat to the Church. 57 Hildegard wrote to Pope Eugenius for the first time in 1147/48. There is compelling evidence in her letter that Eugenius had already seen the Scivias and she asked for his approval to continue: O radiant father, through your representatives you have come to us, just as God foreordained, and you have seen some of the writings of truthful visions, which I have seen from the Living Light, and you have listened to these visions in the embraces of your heart. A part of this writing has now been completed . . . Therefore, I send this letter to you now, as God has instructed me. And my spirit desires that the Light of Light shine in you and purify your eyes and arouse your spirit to your duty concerning my writings, so that your soul may be crowned, which will be pleasing to God. In their instability, many people, those wise in worldly things, disparage these writings of mine, criticizing me, a poor creature formed from a rib, ignorant of philosophical matters (emphasis mine).58 This paragraph is significant for several reasons. First, it attests to the fact that Eugenius read or at least had access to her writings, and that he knew of them prior to his reading, suggesting that at this stage Hildegard had earned something of a reputation. There is no evidence suggesting that this letter was a forgery or was annotated at all. 59 The second aspect of this letter is her suggesting he has a duty to her writings, implying he make a decision to endorse both her and her work. Lastly, Hildegard complains about the “many people” who have criticized her for her lack of philosophical understanding. One critique of Hildegard comes from Mistress Tengswich, “unworthy superior to the sisters at Andernach.” This letter, written 1148/1150, is significant because it is so descriptive of the practices at Hildegard’s convent at Disinbodenberg. Tengswich wrote, “The report of your saintliness has flown far and wide . . . And, as insignificant as we are, 57
Ibid, 382. Ep. 2, Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Vol. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 32-33. 59 Van Engen, an expert in medieval epistolary genre, views the letter as authentic. “Public Persona,” 383-84. 58
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these reports have highly commended the loftiness of your outstanding and extraordinary mode of religious life. We have learned from a number of people . . .” 60 She continues with concern: “We have, however, also heard about strange and irregular practices that you countenance.” 61 Though the letter was written to criticize Hildegard’s immodest practices—wearing unbound hair at church on feast days, wear golden crowns and golden rings, and veils so long that they touch the floor—Tengswich provides evidence of Hildegard’s reputation. In other words, her fama was already becoming established, even if negatively in this early stage. An audience was developing. A final critique, which plagued Hildegard, was that she admitted into her community “only those women from noble, well-established families and absolutely reject others who are of lower birth and of less wealth.”62 Tengswich ends asking by whose authority Hildegard was able to continue such immodest practices. Hildegard responded that it was the Living Light, God, who provided her with this authority. Like Tengswich, the public of the second and third layers of medieval society reacted to Hildegard more strongly than the first, whether positively or negatively. Letters written to her attest to her growing fama. The Provost of St. Victor in Mainz wrote that he was “Attracted to the good aroma of her reputation.”63 A Benedictine monk Godfrey writes that he has learned about her by “the truthful reports of many people,” and that having heard of her reputation, “which is spreading abroad,” he believes in her divine revelations, despite the fact that he has never seen them.64 Many of the letters from this layer of the public remind her of their visits to her and then ask for her intercessory prayers or prophecies to answer their questions. Her vita states that her holy reputation had grown measurably by the time she moved the convent to the 60
Baird, Personal Correspondence, Letter 4, p. 25. Ibid. 62 Baird, Personal Correspondence, Letter 4, p. 25. 63 Ibid, Letter 22, p. 56. 64 Ibid, Letter 23, p. 57. 61
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larger house at Rupertsberg on the Rhine, near Bingen. The authors state that, “not a few wealthy daughters of the nobility began to flock to her to be initiated into religious life according to a rule. Since the anchoress’s single small dwelling could scarcely house them all, she was soon engaged in a quest for more spacious quarters . . .” 65 During the move, she came into the town of Bingen, “where she brought joy and exultation.” 66 Her biographers describe her entry as a public celebration or festival. They state that the local people from Bingen and nearby villages included “many of distinguished rank as well as no number of common folk, all of whom went out to welcome her, with much dancing and singing of the divine praises.” 67 She financed this new property partly from an exchange of property and partly from “the offerings of the faithful which the fame of her reputation had attracted”68 Chapter three of book two begins, “Accordingly, when she began to abound with overflowing streams of good works as with the rivers of Paradise, crowds of people of both sexes came flocking to her, not only from the whole neighborhood, but from every part of threefold Gaul and from Germany.” 69 Presumably, the authors are writing about the growing volume of Hildegard’s writing or during her preaching tours, but they do not say so explicitly. The vita is filled with such examples, extolling Hildegard’s fame and reputation, as well as including samples of her visions. Hildegard’s fama had reached a far wider audience than the local inhabitants near Rupertsberg. She received letters from bishops in cities such as Soissons, Liège, Beauvals, Paris, and Constance in France, from cities closer to home such as Speyer, Halberstadt, and Prague, and as far away as Jerusalem and Rome. Almost all of the letters contain a request for advice and praise of her spirituality and fame.
65
Vita, 1:5, Silvas, 144. Vita 1:7, Silvas, 147. 67 Ibid. 68 Vita 1:7, Silvas, 147. 69 Vita 2:4, Silvas, 161-62. 66
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Hildegard’s public preaching tours took her to twenty-one places throughout Germany and into France (see map 1). She preached to sixteen monastic communities and at five cathedrals.70 Between 1161 and 1163, Elisabeth of Schönau wrote to Hildegard and asked her to take up the matter of the Cathar heresy. 71 Hildegard replied with a visionary treatise to Elisabeth, and thereafter composed three more writings against the Cathars that had been requested by Philip, dean of the Cathedral in Cologne and Werner of Kirchheim. Her language was apocalyptic and urgent, but she also emphasized the need for clerical and monastic reform, because as spiritual men, they were ultimately responsible for the souls of their flocks. Something has gone awry if heresies have taken such hold that they are a threat to the social order. There is no record of how her fiery sermons were received as she evoked violent imagery calling for he destruction and death of heretics, but they are unlikely to have deterred her fame. Her last tour was in 1170, her death in 1179. Most of Hildegard’s correspondence was written during the last years of her life.72 These sermons show the significance and breadth of her fame because they were not only preached by a woman, but were also preached outside of her own convent, in a male public setting. Additionally, the sermons and preaching tours highlight Hildegard’s authority on matters of theology, a position usually held only by her male counterparts. From the time when she first wrote Pope Eugene and Bernard of Clairvaux in 1148 to her last preaching tour in 1170, Hildegard established an authoritative reputation. Whereas Bernard of Clairvaux refuted the errors of heretics by reasoned argumentation, Hildegard refuted them by blaming the clergy and prophesying the heretics’ doom. Beverly Mayne Kienzle states 70
Beverly Mayne Kienzle, “Defending the Lord’s Vineyard: Hildegard of Bingen’s Preaching Against the Cathars,” Medieval Monastic Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 171. Sabina Flanagan asserts that the list is not exhaustive because the final biographer of her vita, Theodoric, leaves out Kirchheim and probably others, A Visionary Life, 172. 71 The dating of the letters is unclear. Kienzle dates the letter to 1163 in the midst of the tour, but Baird says that the tour (her third) ended in 1163. Hildegard wrote a treatise against the Cathars in July, 1163 for the monks at St. Martin in Mainz, which would mean she had little time to compose a lengthy treatise. 72 Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Vol. III (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 109, n. 1.
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that, “Hildegard’s already prophetic voice was emboldened by the recognition she received, as is evidenced in the tone of her letters.” 73 Indeed, during the 1150s, Hildegard wrote to Popes Anastasius, Alexander, and Hadrian, using forceful and admonishing language. Employing effective imagery, she wrote to Anastasius, “You are neglecting the King’s daughter who was entrusted to you, that is, heavenly justice herself. You are allowing this King’s daughter to be thrown to the ground: her beautiful crown and tunic torn asunder by the crudeness of those hostile people who bark like dogs.”74 Similarly, she wrote to Hadrian IV, “Because you allow the fierce rage of she-lions and the mighty strength of leopards, you will fall victim to them yourself.”75 Hildegard’s language is strong, almost hostile, but instead of her language repelling people it effectively secured her fame simply as a prophet. She claimed God’s voice to be speaking through her and was understood by the public to have the right ear of Christ in the bridal chamber, where her spiritual husband also spoke to and through her. Her visions gave her authority because she made plain that they did not occur in dreams or ecstasy, but rather awake and clear-headed. Hildegard’s intercessory role allowed people to hope for a vision of their future and to answer the unanswerable questions. Hildegard’s fama in part, rested upon human nature.
Hildegard’s self-perception: writing to an intended audience Hildegard “also composed certain books on the nature of man, the elements and the variety of created things, and how human beings might derive help from this knowledge, and many other secrets.”76 Two lesser-known works, Physica and Causae et Curae, are markedly different from her other writings. Probably completed by 1158, they are considered Hildegard’s 73
Kienzle, 178. Baird and Ehrman, Letters, 8, p. 41. 75 Baird and Ehrman, Letters, 9, p. 44. 76 Vita, 2:1, Silvas, 155. 74
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medical writings, but they are more about the natural world than about human ailments, diseases, and medical cures. Causae et Curae includes the creation of the cosmos, discussion of the human body, sexuality, common ailments, remedies from nature, the humors, among other topics. Florence Eliza Glaze sees the work as a “theological reading of the history of disease,” 77 yet her cures are of this world, neither supernatural nor produced by miracles. This is not meant to suggest that Hildegard’s natural cures lack divine inspiration. On the contrary, each res (matter) within the earthly realm contain viriditas (a greening life-energy), given by God. When humans ingest these matters they become good (spiritually) and healed (physically). Her vita however, says that she was “Moved by the spirit of prophecy,” which can be seen by pondering “deeply the character of her words brought forth from divine revelation.”78 The Physica is similar to Causae et Curae in areas of natural materials on earth for healing purposes. There is much overlap, and some scholars question whether Hildegard wrote both of the books. There is little evidence to support their doubts, however, and much to indicate she was the author. A focus of the books is the term viriditas, which is used similarly in all of her works. Moreover, viriditas was an uncommon term, seldom seen in texts from the High Middle Ages aside from Hildegard’s usage. Nevertheless, the significance of these texts in regards to Hildegard’s fame and reputation is in their intended audience.79 Naturally, this raises more questions than it answers; Hildegard said nothing about her audience in the prefaces of her texts, neither are there any hints in her vita or letters.
77
Florence Eliza Glaze, “Medical Writer: ‘Behold the Human Creature’” Voice of the Living Light, 136. Vita, 2:1, Silvas, 155. 79 Reception is unknown at this time; no original copies exist and the earliest copy of the Physica dates to 1300. For extant copies, see Melitta Weiss Adamson, “A Reevaluation of Saint Hildegard’s Physica in Light of the Latest Manuscript Finds” Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays (London: Taylor and Francis, 1995), 55-80. There are even fewer copies of Causae et Curae. 78
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Medical writers in the twelfth century relied upon more than the authority of Pliny’s Natural History and Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies. Glaze says that between the ninth and eleventh centuries, more than 145 volumes of medical writings were copied into monastic scriptoria, the primary centers of learning and transmission.80 By the twelfth century, medicine and the natural sciences were components of liberal studies and promoted as a philosophical art.81 For whom was Hildegard writing these texts? The answer may lie in the dearth of medical treatises found in women’s communities, as well as the lack of women participating in medical discourse. Glaze points out that while “the identities of many female practitioners of medicine have been gleaned from medieval records,” such as midwives, “only one other female medical writer, Trota of Salerno, Hildegard’s contemporary, has been verified for the entire medieval period.”82 Moreover, women’s communities in general lacked medical literature until the thirteenth century.83 Thus, perhaps the answer to the matter of Hildegard’s audience is that Hildegard wrote to fill a void in medical writing for women’s communities and beyond. Importantly, the Causae et Curae discusses women’s bodies, reproduction, menstruation, pregnancy, and sexual urges, which are topics not seen in Pliny or Isidore. The other question that arises is why Hildegard saw herself as the one for this task. The answer may be that because she had already claimed an authoritative role in medieval society, her writings on medicine would also be used as an authority. Scores of letters attested to her authority and she rightly viewed herself as a public figure, perhaps as important and influential as Bernard and Abelard. 80
Glaze, 129. Glaze, 131. 82 Glaze, 133. 83 Ibid. 81
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Conclusion Hildegard’s self-perception was created by the auctoritas and fama given to her public persona and private person. She saw herself as a prophet, the mouthpiece of Sapientia, the (feminine) divine Wisdom of the Old Testament, and the (masculine) Godhead. She was the mystical bride of Christ, a special intercessory for the religiosi of the twelfth century. Prophesy borders on heresy because it has the potential to diminish the role and power of the Church and its priests. She recognized the dangers inherent to claims of prophecy but was driven to establish herself as a theological authority. She felt both justified and at ease once her visions were approved and accepted by the “greater masculine world.”84 She took the first steps to establishing her renown while at the convent in Disinbodenberg. Her biographers further cemented her public position by disseminating her vita, collecting her correspondence, and copying her texts. In the twelfth-century context of individualism and self-examination, Hildegard should be viewed as both a private religiosa seeking unio Deo and teaching her nuns and viewed as a public figure with a reputation for serving the needs of the community through prayer and prophecy. Her private self was the religious woman; her public self was a persona. Habermas conceived of a premodern public as “the presentation of self to others in such a way that what one was presenting was one’s social status and corporate membership.” 85 Hildegard participated in a religious public sphere that existed at the intersection of her life as a prophet, writer, and speaker with a part of herself in the cloister, another part in the political community, and another as a bridge between the theological and secular realms.
84 85
Dronke, 147. Mah, 165.
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